Valve has just banned a ton of video games on its Steam platform, but it’s for a very good reason that many of us might welcome.
Valve’s Steam store is not only a great place to find the latest AAA releases that you can download in an instant on PC, but it’s also packed full of indie darlings and expansions galore. That being said, with a digital platform so congested with content, it can be difficult to spot the bad weeds.
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However, as reported by PC Gamer (via Gaming on Linux), Valve has been pulling out some of the seemingly bad weeds from its Steam store, in particular, those that have featured the “watch to continue” type ads that we so commonly see in free mobile games and apps.
Courtesy of Steam’s advertising webpage, Valve has outlined its updated plans on how developers/publishers will use advertisements in its products. One of the most notable updates is that ads used as a revenue model in games will be outright banned.
“Developers should not use paid advertising as a business model in their game, such as requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play,” reads the Valve update.
However, ads will be allowed as long as “such portrayals are not disruptive and are appropriate within the context of the game”. It’s safe to assume that this won't impact AAA and indie games that use product placement more respectfully.
Hopefully, this wave of fresh bans will impact the correct Steam games that exist to spam the player with so many links, that they accidentally click on a website they had no intention of visiting.
If only Google’s Play Store would implement something similar, we can only hope.